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SLAVERY AND THE WAR.
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Slavery and the War:
A HISTORICAL ESSAY.
BY
REY. HENRY DARLING, D. D.
" Love thou thy land, with l.jTe far brought
From out the storied Past, and nsed
Within the PreBent, but transfused
Through future time, by power of thought."' — Tenntsom.
PHILADELPHIA:
J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO.
1863.
Entered, according to Act of Coiigres3, in the year 180-3, by
J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO.,
In the Office of the Clerk of the Di^^triet Court in and for the Kaslern
District of Pennsylvania.
\
SLAVERY AND THE WAR.
From the commencement of that internecine war, which is now-
raging with so much fury in our country, the faith that it would
eventuate in the entire destruction of American slavery was, with
many good men, strong. They had long stood appalled before
this gigantic national evil, afraid almost to utter in words the sen-
timents of condemnation that were burning in their hearts, and
entirely unable to see how any exodus was to be opened for the
enslaved. The problem was too profound for human solution.
Girt around with constitutional defenses, and its righteousness
maintained by the teachings of almost every pulpit in the South,
an institution, once universally confessed to be but temporary, and
destined before the march of civilization and religion to pass away,
seemed fast imbedding itself indissolubly, into the very structure
of a large part of American society.
But how changed was the whole aspect of this question, the
very moment that this great national sin, in its vaulting ambition,
grappled with liberty, and sought to hurl into the dust, the very
institutions that had fostered its greatness ! Timid philanthropists
and religionists then saw, at once, that God had taken this problem,
so insoluble with them, into His hands, and that now again, in the
eyes of all the nations, would that prophecy of Christ be fulfilled —
"All they that take the sword shall perish with the sword."
Doubtless at the outset, this expectation of the final issue was,
as to the mode of its accomplishment, vague. Men walked to this
sublime conclusion by a simple faith. Unable to believe that the
purpose of God in permitting this rebellion was our national ruin,
but seeing in it His design to cleanse and purify ne, in what other
direction could the process extend but in this? True, slavery was
not our only national sin. We had other evils over which to
mourn, and to rid us of which, we well deserved the judgmeoU of
(3)
4 SLAVERY AND THE WAR.
God. But all these, individually considered or aggregated, what
were they when once compared with the single fact of the enslave-
jnent of nearly four millions of people ? Are other demons to be
exorcised from our body politic, and this one to remain ? Is God
bringing us through this terrible baptism of blood, to cleanse the
white robe of our national purity from a few of its minor impuri-
ties, but yet to permit this deepest, darkest stain to remain ?
That would be a strange teleology, indeed, that would lead any to
such a conclusion.
And this faith in the ultimate issue of our struggle, cherished
by many, the very moment that hostilities were commenced, how
wonderfully has every subsequent event confirmed it ! God has
given us, in this rebellion, what we have been wont to call dark
days, but in reality they were bright ones. He has suffered oar
armies sometimes to be defeated ; but our greatest moral victories
have been at those very seasons achieved. What if it had been
otherwise? What, if over the defenses of Manassas, or through
the swamps of the Chickahominy, or across the Rappahannock
and the Rapidan, our armies had marched to victory ? Would
not the Union, in all probability, have been restored upon its old
basis, and slavery have gone on for many centuries to come, sus-
tained in its present possessions, if not extended by all the de-
fenses of the Federal Constitution ? It is nothing but these very
defeats which have rendered such a supposition improbable, if not
impossible. But for them Congress might never have passed the
Confiscation Act, nor the President have issued his proclamation
of emancipation to the Enslaved. It was the successes of the rebel-
lion that constrained this legislation. They were dernier resorts,
extra-constitutional acts — it may be — adopted by our civil au-
thorities reluctantly, and only from the necessities of self-preser-
vation.
And thas has it been all along in the history of this struggle.
We often marvel at the hot haste with which some European
powers acknowledged these rebels against our Government as
"belligerents^'; and we can hardly repress the indignation that
we feel against our mother country, for the substantial sympathy
she has given them. Previous to the outbreak of this war, no one
could for a moment have imagined, that England would have pur-
sued such a policy toward us, as she has. But recently, herself,
delivered from a fearful rebellion which threatened to tear from
her one of her largest possessions, and to quell which she had to
SLAVEhl AND THE WAR. 5
pour out not a little of her most precious blood, we were all ready
to expect her warmest sympathy with ns in a similar peril. But
may we not, in the issue to which it must lead, felicitate ourselves
that she has denied us this ? — ay 1 that she has given that very
sympathy which we had anticipated for ourselves, to our enemies?
Had it been as we hoped, the sword would, long ere this, have
been sheathed. It has been foreign sympathy and aid, together
with the hope of foreign intervention and recognition, that has
made the leaders of this rebellion so persistent in their treason.
They have not desisted in their mad purpose, because voices of
hope have ever been coming to them from beyond the sea.
But did many good men, at the commencement of this war, by
fnith, see in its final issue thife destruction of American slavery?
Did they believe that its mission was to us, as was that of Moses
to Pharaoh, and that we should finally behold a second exodus of
the enslaved ? It is now more than faith which apprehends such a
result. We can almost walk by sighl to this sublime conclusion.
One of the profoundest thinkers of our age, in speaking of the
relations that this war sustains to American slavery, remarks:
" I cannot see how any Southern man, desiring that slavery should
be continued and perpetuated, can be willing to permit this war
to be a long one ; nor can I see how any Northern man, hoping
and praying for the destruction of slavery, can desire that the war
should be a short one." The argument is well put, and no candid
mind, we think, can fail to admit its truthfulness. Liberty must
follow in the wake of our invading armies. The gradual disinte-
gration of domestic servitude, is one of the natural processes of a
war like this. Slavery must flee before our advancing hosts, as
darkness flies before the light. Many slaves voluntarily come into
the Federal lines, others fall into those lines from necessity, and few
of either class can ever be made again to wear the yoke of bondage.
Some are brought under the advantages of a partial education, a
few are armed, all taste of the sweets of personal liberty, and are
thus unfitted, by a threefold influence, for future servitude. At
every point, in the domain of slavery, where our arms have already
established themselves, the process of emancipation is actually
going on. A flag of freedom is unfurled, and under its folds, in
rapidly augmenting numbers, are gathered the enslaved. It has
been estimated, that in this way, more than one hundred and fifty
thousand slaves, have already been qjade freemen.
Moreover, where these influences have not as yet been felt, where
v.
$ SLAVERY AND THE WAR.
the rebellion is still in full povver, the necessities of war have re-
quired the resort, on the part of our enemies, to an expedient that
is itself full of peril to the stability of slavery. A very large num-
ber of slaves, withdrawn from their labor on isolated plantations,
and in quiet villages, have been congregated in cities, or at other
points of peril, to build forts, or to dig trenches, or in some other
way to aid in the defenses of their masters. Will these, when
again remanded to their quiet home-labor, be the same peaceful
and willing subjects of oppression that they once were ? Is it pos-
sible to conceive that, while thus employed, some true conception
of the nature of this struggle will not find its way into even their
besotted intellect, so that, ever after, the North Star will shine
more brightly to their vision, and* be more attractive to their
fugitive feet ?
And these natural processes of the war, eliminating slavery,
must only increase as it continues to be vigorously waged. The
more the wedge is driven, the broader will be the rent, and the
deeper down will it run. Old centers of light brightening, will
throw out their beams farther into the darkness; and new ones
kindled will scatter a darkness that still remains unbroken. Along
the Atlantic seaboard and the Gulf of Mexico, from the mouth of
the Delaware to the Rio Grande, there was not, a twelvemonth
ago, a single point where freedom had a home. That whole line
of sea-coast, with a vast territory stretching away to the north and
west, was in the undisputed possession of slavery. As, however,
by the prowess of our arms, forts, navy-yards, and cities have all
along that coast been wrested from rebel hands, they have each
one become — unintentionally, perhaps, but from very necessity —
free homes for the enslaved. Events have daily occurred there
that were never known before. Labor has been remunerated,
ignorance instructed, and bondmen made free. And shall this
process continue for another twelvemonth ? Shall these free
homes for the enslaved not only go on with their great work of
emancipation, but be multiplied all along that coast ? Shall Wil-
mington, Charleston, and Mobile be added to Norfolk, Beaufort,
and New Orleans ? How could slavery survive the potency of such
influences, working— at her very heart— her destruction ?
But further, how disastrous, in its results to slavery, must be the
simple continuance by our navy of the present blockade of the
Southern ports ! Perhaps no. country in the world ever enjoyed
so complete a monopoly of a great staple of trade as the States
SLAVERY AND THE WAR. I
now in rebellion against this government. The cotton manufacto-
ries of England and France, supposed to give employment to more
than a million and a half of persons, and to yield an annual income
in England alone of thirty-six millions pounds sterling, have for
the last twenty-five years, received from these States, more than
four-fifths of their supplies.* At the commencement of this cen-
tury the amount of cotton grown in this country was inconsider-
able. The United States the^^ielded but a small fraction of the
aggregate production of the ^rld. But ever since that, the quan-
tity grown here has been rapidly increasing, while that produced
elsewhere — India and Egypt excepted — has materially lessened. By
an official report ma^e to the Congress of the United States in the
year 1835, it appears that whi^e the total production of raw cotton
for the previous year (1834) was 900,000,000 pounds, 460,000,000
pounds were exported from our own land.f And it is the growth
of this trade, rapid beyond all commercial precedent, that has en-
riched these States, made slavery to them a profitable institution,
and given them, in this struggle, to so great a degree the sympathy
of foreign nations. Indeed, the monopoly of this great staple has
been the bulwark of American slavery. It was this that arrested
that process of emancipation, which had before been gradually
extending itself as a great tide of blessing over our whole land, and
which wrought — as we shall hereafter more fully see — a great rev-
olution of sentiment, even at the South, in regard to the moral
character of this institution. There is much truth in that adage,
regarded commercially, " Cotton is King."
But already does the throne of this monarch totter. Already,
has the monopoly of this article, possessed so long by the South-
ern States, been hopelessly broken. Should peace be restored to-
day, the commercial world will never be as dependent upon this
country, for her supply of cotton, as she has been. Other sources
have been opened for this supply, and through them will no incon-
siderable portion, of the raw material, be hereafter procured. The
blockade of the Southern ports of this country, preventing the
exportation of cotton, has already greatly stimulated its growth, in
every other land, adapted by climate and soil for its production.
And let this condition of things exist much longer, let the supply
of cotton from this country to England and France be cut off for
* Penny Cyclopaedia, article Cotton.
f See Woodbury's Report to the House of Representatives.
v^
8 SLAVERY AND THE WAB.
another twelveraonth, and what though then her ports be opened
to the commerce of the world, other nations will have wrested
forever from her grasp this great scepter of power. India, Egypt,
and South Africa will then supply the looms of Manchester, Stock-
port, and Glasgow. Fields heretofore sown in cotton, will be
planted in wheat, or corn. Slavery will cease to be an economical
institution ; and conscience, no longer perverted by the profits of
unrequited labor, will instinctively speak out its abhorrence of
hnman servitude.
Nor can we see that the issue would be materially changed,
should we allow the supposition of a failure of our arras, and the
consequent establishment, as a separate nation, of the States now
in rebellion against this government. Admitting, for argument
sake, such a result of this struggle, and could the slavery of the
black race long remain as an institution of the new Confederacy ?
Its geographical boundary to the North, wherever drawn, could be
but imaginary. With no great rivers or mountains flowing across
our continent, a line of separation between the new government,
and the old Union, could exist only on parchment. For fifteen
hundred miles, and more, slavery and freedom would lie side by side ;
no physical barriers would separate them. Could darkness bear
such proximity to light?
We should remember that, upon the supposition now made, it ia
highly probable, if not certain, that there would be everywhere in
the old Union the most intense aversion to slavery. Its citizens
would rightfully regard it as the cause of all their national troubles,
and, instead of apologizing for it, and looking kindly upon it, as
many now do, all would denounce and execrate it. Any provi-
sion for the rendition of fugitive slaves would then be impossible.
Every bondman would be free the very moment that, crossing that
imaginary line of demarkation between the two nations, his feet
should tread upon our soil. Ay, more ! to cross that line he
would be invited, if not by actual legislation, yet by the warm sym-
pathies of our whole people. Surely " the spider's most attenuated
web, were cord and cable," to the feeble hold that the slaveholder
would then have upon his human chattel. An early morning walk,
a quiet stroll at evening, the leaping of a fence, the fording of ft
little stream, a certain road to liberty, who among the enslaved
would not walk in it ? Freedom, when brought into such a con-
tact with slavery, would encroach very rapidly upon her domain.
She would extend her lines farther and farther into the dominion
SLAVERY AND THE WAR. 9
of her enemy ; nor could the process be well impeded until her
whole territory should thus be gradually, but surely, wrested from
her prrasp.
Moreover, looking at the physical and social condition of the
States that would thus be confederated, do we not see that many
of them contain in themselves elements, that could not long be
quiet and submissive, in a government built upon slavery as its
corner-stone ?
A single glance at the map of this country will show almost
every Slave State to be divided into two sections, differing very
widely from each other in their physical geography. One is hilly
and rugged, and is formed Jr^ -those two mountain ranges which,
running in almost parallel lines through the center of Virginia, and
from thence through Western North Carolina, and Eastern Tennes-
see, terminate in Northern Georgia, and Alabama. The other is
level and low, and stretches northward, and westward, from the
Atlantic, and the Gulf, And as these two sections contrast in
their physical aspect, so do they in climate, productions, structure
of society, political views, and necessities. One is adapted to
the growth of the great staples of a semi-tropical climate ; in the
other the cereal grains of the North are most cultivated. In one
section, the people — save in the large cities — are almost wholly
engaged in agricultural pursuits ; in the other, the facilities for
manufactories invite their establishment. The one is peopled by
large landholders, of high, social, and sometimes intellectual cul-
ture, but of a proud and arrogant spirit ; the other by a compara-
tively rude and simple people, of limited possessions. The one, in
its political policy, favors free trade ; the other has its interest
best subserved by some protection to home industry. In the one
slavery seems almost indigenous, has grown into gigantic propor-
tions, and is doubtless pecuniarily profitable ; in the other it is an
exotic, has never so firmly interwoven itself into the structure of
society, and is perhaps pecuniarily a burden. And now can it be
supposed that this latter section, this mountain region, this land
along whose streams are slowly springing up manufacturing estab-
lishments, this land of hardy industry and small farms, would long
submit to a government, that is wholly in the interest of the rich
aristocratic cotton-growers of the low country, and that has been
established entirely for their aggrandizement? Already has that
part of this great section of the South, which borders upon free-
dom, asserted that it had no sympathy with this new Confederacy.
10 SLAVERY AND THE WAR-
Western Virginia is, upon any sapposition that we can make as to
the issue of this war, indissolubly connected with the Xorth ; and
so, doubtless, would Eastern Tennessee be, could she but have had
her own election in the matter. And the other portions of this
same section, though for a little season drawn into such an alliance,
could not in it be long retained. There is not, in a word, at the
South itself, we contend, that homogeneousness which is essential
to a slave oligarchy. Such a government would contain in itself, the
seeds, of its own dissolution.
We have no hesitation, then, in affirming, as oar settled convic-
tion, that the issue of this war will be the entire destruction of
American slavery. Each fact in the unfolding of this bloody
tragedy, has only helped as on to this conclusion. We walked by
faith, timidly bat hopefully, to this result when the first clash of
arms broke upon our astonished ear, but now we walk to it by
sight, boldly, and without any fear of disappointment. True, we
may be slow in reaching this sublime goal. Great social evils do
not ordinarily either come or go, as did Jonah's gourd, in a night.
There may yet be many a convulsive throe of this hydra before it
dies. But the death-blow has been given it, and all the politi-
cal revolutions that are now shaking our land, are but its dying
agonies.
With this deep conviction, we propose in this article, not indeed
to write the obituary of slavery, but to seek to rescue from ol)livion,
some great facts in its history, that may afford the material for
those who will hereafter be called to perform this office.
We will first briefly glance at the history of slavery during our
colonial dependence, show how generally the colonists regarded
the system as unrighteous, and how stoutly they all resisted its
extension in their midst.
Every one, at all familiar with the early history of this country,
is aware of the way in which slavery was here introduced. In the
month of August, 1620 — a little more than thirteen years after the
first permanent English settlement was made on this continent, and
four months before the Puritan colony landed at Plymouth — a
Dutch man-of-war entered the James River, and sold to the colo-'
nists twenty Guinea negroes. The additions, however, that for
the next few years were made to this number, must have been quit^;
inconsiderable, for in 1G50 we find that the proportion of slave*
to freemen in the colony was but one to fifty. It was not until
SLAVERY AND THE WAR. 11
James II., in 1672, chartered a company, for the express purpose
of trading in slaves, under the name of "The Royal African Com-
pany," that the institution of slavery may be said to have become
established in the Virginia colony.
But all this transpired, let it be here carefully noted, unsanc-
tioned by any colonial legislation. The system domesticated itself
in the colony gradually and surreptitiously; and while the imme-
diate demand for laborers in a new country, doubtless blinded the
eyes of the colonists to the evils that domestic servitude would
ultimately entail upon them, yet never did it lead them in any way
to give to this institution the least legal sanction. Indeed "there
is not," says Bancroft, "in all the colonial legislation of America,
one single law which recognizes the rightfulness of slavery in
the abstract.'"* The colony at first passed by the subject in silence.
Too weak to utter any protest against it, it passively suffered its
introduction. But this silence was soon broken ; and the first
slave-holding colony in this country, by a long series of legislative
enactments, uttered, in no uncertain words, her severe condemna-
tion of that very system, to conserve and perpetuate which, she is
now seeking to destroy our National Government.
But, before noticing the strenuous opposition that the Virginia
colony made, to the extension of slavery in its midst, there is one
fact, common to all the colonies, which, as it strikingly illustrates
how general was then the belief that Christianity was opposed to
slavery, we will do well here to mention. From New England to
Carolina, the opinion that, by consenting to the baptism of his
slave, the master virtually enfranchised him, was almost universal.
The colonists, did not believe that a man could become the Lord's
freeman, and yet remain in bondage to his fellow-man. And how
deep and general this sentiment was, we may judge from the fact
that the three colonial legislatures of Maryland, Virginia, and
South Carolina, gave a negative to it by special enactments. As
an example, we quote a brief section from the act passed by the
legislature of Maryland in 1715: —
" Forasmuch as many people have neglected to baptize their negroes,
_fr Eufl'er them to be baptized, on a vain apprehension that negroes, by
receiving the sacrament of baptism are manumitted and set free— Be it
enacted, etc., That no negro or negroes, by receiving the holy sacrament
of baptism, is thereby manumitted or set free, nor hath any right or title
* Vol. iii. p. 409.
12 SLAVERY AND THE WAR.
to freedom or manumission more than he had before, any law, usage, or
custom to the contrary notwithstanding."*
The crown lawyers of England, also, declared this sentiment of
the colonists to be erroneous. Yorke and Talbot, his Majesty's
Attorney and Solicitor-General, pronounced it lawful to retain a
baptized negro in slavery ; and these opinions were printed, and
widely circulated in the colonies. And to this same end was like-
wise the power of the Church evoked. Gibson, the Bishop of
London, declared that "Christianity and the embracing of the
Gospel does not make the least alteration in civil property. "f
In a case, tried before the Judges of the King's Bench in Eng-
land, in 1696, and where the question, whether the baptism of a
negro slave, without the privity or consent of his master, emanci-
pated him ? underwent an elaborate discussion, the counsel for the
slave thus presented the moral argument upon the affirmative: —
"Being baptized according to the use of the Church, he (the slave) is
thereby made a Christian : * * bat if the duties which arise from such
a condition cannot be performed in a state of servitude, the baptism
must be manumission. That such duties cannot be performed is plain;
for the persons baptized are to be confirmed by the Diocesan, when they
give an account of their faith, and are enjoined by several acts of Par-
liament to come to church. But if the master hath an absolute property
over bim, then he might send him far enough from the performance of
those duties, viz., into Turkey, or any other country of infidels, where
they neither can or will be suffered to exercise the Christian religion.
* * It is observed atnong the Turks that they do not make slaves of
those of their own religion, though taken in war; and if a Christian be
80 taken, yet if he renounce Christianity and turn Mohammedan, he doth
thereby obtain his freedom. And if this be a custom allowed among
infidels then baptism, in a Christian nation, as this is, should be an im-
mediate enfranchisement to them, as they should thereby acquire the
privileges and immunities enjoyed by those of the same religion, and be
entitled to the laws of England."!
But to return to the history of the Virginia colony. Slavery,
introduced silently, and without any legal sanction among this
people, was afterward, as we have affirmed, stoutly resisted in its
extension, by a long course of legislative enactments. Let ui^
instance a few of these.
* Act of 171-3, ch. xliv. sec. 23.
■}■ Bancroft, vol. iii. p. 409.
+ Stroud's Laws of Slavery, p. 67.
SLAVERY AND THE WAR. 13
At a very early period, some time prior to 1662 — but forty years,
let it be observed, after the introduction of slavery into Virginia — its
increase in the colony veas sought to be checked by the imposition
of a tax upon female slaves.* At first this tax was only five per
cent., and, to avoid the jealousy of English traders, was made pay-
able by the buyer; but as this did not accomplish the desired end,
the duty was from time to time increased, until at last it amounted
to four times that sum. All discrimination, likewise, of sex was
finally removed. Every negro imported into the colony was sub-
ject to an impost of twenty per cent; and though from this high
duty, amounting almost to a prohibition, there was subsequently a
considerable decline, yet this mode of checking, if not entirely
destroying, the importation of slaves by the imposition of a tax,
was never wholly abandoned, until the royal veto forbade its con-
tinuance.f In 1726, Hugh Drysdale, the Deputy-Governor of
Yirginia, announced to the House of Burgesses that the "inter-
fering intered of the African ComjMyiy" — a company chartered
by the English government, and who enjoyed the monopoly of the
slave-trade — had obtained the repeal of all laws imposing any tax
upon the importation of slaves into that colony.J
But though these praiseworthy i^fiforts to restrain the slave-trade,
and ultimately to exclude slavery from the colony, continued for
a long series of years, were thus brought to a violent and disas-
trous end, by the interference of the British crown, yet "a deeply-
seated public opinion began more and more to avow the evils and
the injustice of slavery itself;" and in 1761 it was proposed to
suppress the importation of Africans by a prohibitory duty : —
"Among those," says Bancroft, "who took part in the long and vio-
lent debate," which this motion occasioned, " was Richard Henry Lee.
* * In the continued importation of slaves, he foreboded danger to
the political and moral interests of the Old Dominion ; an increase of
the free Anglo-Saxons, he argued, would foster arts and varied agricul-
ture, while a race doomed to abject bondage was of necessity an enemy
to social happiness. He paiuted from ancient history the horrors of
servile insurrections. He deprecated the barbarous atrocity of the trade
with Africa, and its violation of the equal rights of men created like our-
selves in the image of God. 'Christianity,' thus he spoke in conclusion,
' by introducing into Europe the truest principles of universal benevo-
* Bancroft, vol. i. p. 173.
f Tucker"s Blackstone, vol. ii., Appendix, p. 49.
^ Bancroft, vol. iii. p. 415.
14 SLAVERY AND THE WAE.
lence aad brotherly love, happily abolished slavery. Let us who profess
the same religion practice its precepts, and by agreeing to this duty pay
a proper regard to our true interests, and to the dictates of justice and
humanity.' "*
The motion prevailed. The prohibitory tax was imposed. The
colonial legislature, did everything it was competent to do, to ban-
ish this evil from the colony. It was thoroughly awake to the
enormities of the system; but the statute was immediately vetoed
by the English crown.
But every effort to banish slavery, by the imposition of a heavy
tax upon imported slaves, thus defeated, the Virginia Assembly
resorted to a new expedient. In 1772, they petitioned the King
upon this subject, and how remarkable was their language I It
must savor not a little of fanaticism for many modern conservatives
to read such stirring words. Indeed, with what is now trans-
piring in the Old Dominion, there is nothing short of the verity
of history, that could make us believe that such a document ever
emanated from such a source : —
"We are encouraged," say they, "to look up to the throne and im-
plore your Majesty's paternal assistance in averting a calamity of a most
alarming nature. The importation of slaves into the colonies from the
coast of Africa hath long been considered as a trade of great inhumanity,
and under its present encouragement, we have too much reason to fear,
will endanger the existence of your Majesty's American dominions. We
are sensible that some of your Majesty's subjects in Great Britain may
reap emolument from this sort of traffic ; but when we consider that it
greatly retards the settlement of the colonies with useful inhabitants,
and may in time have the most destructive influence, we presume to hope
that the interest of a few will be disregarded, when placed in competition
with the security and happiness of such numbers of your Majesty's dutiful
and loyal subjects.
"Deeply impressed with these sentiments, we most humbly beseech
your Majesty to remove all those restraints on your Majesty's governors
of this colony which inhibit their assenting to such laws as might check
so very pernicious a commerce."!
And that this petition might receive the favorable regard of the
British ministry, some of those distinguished philanthropists in
England, who were then pleading so eloquently the cause of the
enslaved, were informally solicited personally to press its reception
* Bancroft, vol. iv. p. -422.
f Princeton Repertory, vol. xxxiv. p. 536.
SLAVERY AND THE WAR. 15
upon the crown. And to this request they cheerfully complied.
Granville Sharpe, who had just immortalized himself by the de-
fense of the poor negro, Somerset, and who, in that memorable
case, had secured a decision which not only cleared Somerset, but
determined that slavery could not exist in Great Britain, waited
persoually on the Secretary of State, and urged the righteousness
of the petition.* But it was all in vain. The policy of England
with regard to slavery in the American colonies was fixed. She
would not suffer it to pollute her own soil; but at the same time
she would force its acceptance, and extension, upon her citizens
abroad. And doubtless unwilling, by the direct refusal of so right-
eous a request, to manifest to the world her true purpose, she
added to her virtual rejection of this petition, the indignity of pro-
found silence. No reply was ever made to this request of the
colony, and slavery, under the aegis of the British crown, went on,
fastened herself more and more deeply, into the structure of Amer-
ican society.
But as exhibiting still further the opposition of the Virginia col-
ony to the institution of African slavery — an opposition that but
for the interference of Great Britain would have certainly issued
in its destruction — we should add to these legislative enactments,
the utterances of some of her most distinguished sons, and the
incidental references to this fact that may be found, in some of her
official documents. Ma^son says : —
"The British government constantly checked the attempts of Virginia
to put a stop to this infernal traffic." f
In the preamble to the Constitution of that State, promulgated
n the 29th of June, 1776, we read: —
"Whereas, George III,, King, etc., heretofore intrusted with the exer-
cise of the kingly ofiBce in this government, hath endeavored to pervert
the same into a detestable and insupportable tyranny, by prompting our
negroes to rise in arms among us — those very negroes whom, by an in-
human use of the negative, he hath refused us permission to exclude hy
law — Therefore Resolved," etc. J
And it was doubtless the memory of the same facts, present to
the mind of Jeflferson, another of Virginia's illustrious sons, that
* Tucker's Blackstone, vol. ii., Appendix, pp. 51 and 52.
f Madison Papers, 3, 1390.
X Stroud"s Laws of Slavery, p. 37,
16 SLAVERY AND THE WAR.
led him, in the original draft of the Declaration of Independence,
to instance, as one of the reasons for separating ourselves from the
government of George III., the fact that — "Determined to keep
open a market where men should he bought and sold, he had
prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt
to prohibit or restrain this execrable commerce,^'' a clause which
was erased by Congress, not because it deviated from historic
truth, or failed to express the sentiments of a large majority of its
members, but, as Jefferson himself said, because "the pusillanimous
idea that we had friends in England worth keeping terms with, still
haunted the minds of many."*
And what we have thus endeavored to show was true of Virginia,
was measurably true of all the other English continental colonies.
"In the aggregate," says Bancroft, "they were always opposed to
the African slave-trade," * * and laws designed to restrict im-
portations of slaves are scattered copiously along the records of
colonial legislation. f Should there be any exception to this re-
mark, many circumstances would point us at once to South Caro-
lina. Of the original thirteen States of this Union, she alone was
from the cradle, essentially a planting State, with slave labor. The
institution of involuntary servitude is coeval with the first planta-
tions on Ashley River. It was likewise observed from the first, that
the climate of South Carolina was more congenial to the African
than that of the more northern colonies, and hence she early be-
came the principal point to which slavers brought their human
chattels. Indeed, so rapid was the importation of Africans into
this colony, that in a few years they were to the whites in the pro-
portion of twenty-two to twelve, a proportion that had no parallel
north of the West Indies.^ The German traveler. Von Reck, in
1734 reported the number of negroes in South Carolina as 30,000,
and for the annual importation gave the exaggerated estimate of
3000.§
But this rapid increase of bondmen did not take place, even in
South Carolina, without exciting alarm, and without the attempt
being at least twice made by its legislature to check this evil, if
not entirely remove it. In 1715 a duty of ten pounds was imposed
* Elliots Debates on the Federal Constitution, vol. i. p. 60.
f Bancroft, vol. iii. pp. 410 and 411.
X Ibid., vol ii. p. 171.
I Ibid., vol. iii. p. 407.
SLAVERY AND THE WAR. 17
on the introduction into the colony of every negro from abroad ;
and, although the alleged object of this statute was not the restric-
tion of the slave-trade, but -the payment of the colonial debt, yet so
evidently would the former of these results follow, that the British
crown, ever careful that nothing should impede this traffic, at once
vetoed (he act.*
The other attempt to restrict this trade was made in IHO. "From
prudential moiives,^^ the Assembly of South Carolina, at that time,
passed an act forbidding the importation of any more slaves, into
the colony. For once, at least, her eyes seem to have been opened
to the greatness of this evil, and she was determined to rid herself
of it. But this act, like every other one of a similar character
through our entire colonial history, was immediately annulled by
the royal veto, the governor reprimanded for having sanctioned
such a bill, and the otlier colonies warned, by a circular letter,
against similar offenses. f
With reference to the other colonies, it is hardly necessary that
we should sketch, with any detail, their history. When Oglethorpe
and his associates — seeking in this New World an asylum from the
persecutions of the Old — settled Georgia, they determined forever
to exclude slavery from that territory ; and because of their obsti-
nate adherence to this purpose, against the earnest remonstrance of
the government at home, were deprived of their charter. | When
Pennsylvania, in 1712, adopted "An Act to prevent the importa-
tion of negroes and Indians into her province," and, to make it
effectual, imposed a hf j^vy duty upon all such importations, the
statute was immediately set aside by royal authority. When New
Hampshire was separated from Massachusetts, and organized as a
royal province, to prevent any imitation by her of that opposition
to slavery that had from the very beginning distinguished the old
Puritan colony, these instructions were given to her governor :
" You are not to give your assent to, or pass any law imposing
duties on negroes imported into New Hampshire. "§ When Mas-
sachusetts, in 1774, brought a long series of legislative enactments
against slavery to a close, by passing a bill, entitled "An Act to
prevent the importations of negroes and others as slaves into this
* Bancroft, vol. iii. p. ;^29.
f Ibid., vol. iii. p. 4H!, and Princeton Repertory, Julj, 18Gi'.
I Ibid., vol. iii. p. 41G.
^ Gordon's .■Vnierican Revolution, vol. i. Letter 2.
2
18 SLAVERY AND THE WAR.
province," Governor Hutchison not only vetoed the bill, but pro-
rogued the Assembly;* and finally, in 1776, "amid all the agita-
tions of the dawning revolution,'' the Earl of Dartmouth addressed
to a colonial agent these memoralde words, so truthfully expressive
of what had been the whole policy of Great Britain to her American
colonies : "We cannot alloxv the colonies to check or discourage
in any degree a traffic so beneficial to the nation.''^f
And here, with this history before us, it will be interesting, for
one moment, to inquire into the cause of the pro-slavery policy of
England, so persistently pursued toward her American colonies, for
more than one hundred and fifty years ; for, if we mistake not, we
shall discover in it, one great reason for her sympathy with those
who are now seeking the dismemberment of onr nation. England
has, for several centuries, been a manufacturing nation, dependent
to a great extent upon other countries, both for the supply of the
raw material, and for a market for her finished wares. Whenever,
then, her citizens emigrated to other lands, and English colonies
were there formed, it was clearly for her interest that their inh:.b-
itants should be mainly engaged in agricultural pursuits. For
should it be otherwise, should they become a manufacturing people,
they would evidently be brought into competition with her. Plant-
ing colonies would minister to the wealth of England. They
would, at the same time, be to her sources of supply, and channels
for ilisbursement. Manufacturing colonies would tend to \ct pov-
erty. They would lessen the demand for the produc* of her
looms, by furnishing to the market their own goods.
But in no way could this end be better secured than by the estab-
lishment in her colonies of African slavery. Such an institution
could hardly exist, save among an agricultural peopk. The intel-
ligence and industry that successful manu''acturing establishments
require, are incompatible with labor that is constrained and uncom-
pensated. A race scarcely half civilizfd, may, by the lash, be com-
pelled to dig and to plow, but the task is not so easy when the labor
is transferred from the field to the factory. Skillful artisans may,
indeed, be occasionally found wearing the chains of slavery, but the
instances are rare, and the experiment dangerous to a continued
bondage. And, perhaps, we may here venture, without any fear of
contradiction, to assert that a whole nation of artisans could not
* Princeton Repertory, July, 1862.
f Bancroft, vol. iii. p. 410.
SLAVERY AND THE WAR. 19
be long retained in involuntary servitude. It was, therefore, to
coTi'^train the American colonies to become planting colonies, and
thus guard her own manufactories from competition, that England
sought so persistently to fill them with negroes.
And to the same cause, as we have already intimated, are we in
a measure, to attrilmte England's sympathy in our day, with the
great rebellion of the South. New P^ngland is a competitor of old
England. By the cheapness, beauty, and durability of her mana-
factured fabrics, she has come to be a dangerous rival of the old
country. Lowell and Lawrence, are beginning to stand by the side
of Manchester and Stockport, and under the fostering care of a
judicious protective taritf, may perhaps in the future race of trade
even outrun them. Lideed, as an intelligent Englishman visits the
eastern and northern sections of this country, he cannot, we think,
fail to be deeply impressed with the, to him, homelike appearance
of everything in the commercial life of this nation. In Pittsburg,
begrimed with the dust and smoke of scores of furnaces, he sees his
OMn Birmingham or Glasgow; Eastern Massachusetts, in whose
villages and cities the hum of the spindle and the loom is almost
unbroken, seems to him like a second Lancashire ; and so vast a
forest of masts as lie along, and stretch out from, the wharves of
New York, he must remember scarce ever to have seen on the
Thames, or the Mersey. But extending his journey to the cottOD-
growinf States of the South, how different is the aspect of every-
thing I. t he beholds ! The picture is now one of contrast, not of
resemblaT ^e. Nothing here in trade indicates any competition
with his own co' yitry, but, on the contrary, everything denotes
supply and demand. These States are, commercially, the correl-
ative of Engfand. They are 7//a/?</??gr States. They produce just
what she needs to keen her factories in motion, and then aids in
the consumption of her finished fabrics.
In her present sympathy, then, with the slaveholding interests of
the South, England has only, we contend, been consistent with her-
self. It was to guard her own manufactories from competition,
that she forced the institution of slavery upon this land. For
this she planted this Upas in our country. And it is for this that
she would protect and defend it, now that every fiber and leaf is
quivering, under the vigorous blows of freedom.
And that the explanation just given of England's pro-slavery
policy, toward her American colonies is the true one, the history of
those times abundantly proves. A British merchant, in 1745, pub-
20 SLAVERY AND THE WAR.
lished a tract, entitled "The African Slave Trade the great Pillar
and Support of the British Plantation Trade in America," from
which Bancroft, in his History, makes the following quotation : —
" Were it possible for white men to answer the end of negroes in plant-
ing, the colonics would interfere with the manufactures of these kingdoms.
In such case, indeed, we might have just reason to dread the prosperity
of onr colonies, but while we can supply them abundantly with negroes,
we need be under no such apprehension. Negro labor will keep our
British colonies in a due subserviency to the interest of their mother
country; for while our plantations depend on planting by negroes, our
colonies can never prove injurious to British manufactures, never become
independent of these kingdoms. "*
Nor is this the only evidence that we can adduce of the truthful-
ness of oar position. One of the first articles that the colonists
attempted to manufacture for themselves was iron. To this they
were invited from their large necessities as a new people, and from
the fact that the country especially abounded in this ore. And in
time, they attained so much proficiency in this department of busi-
ness, as not only to supply their own wants, but to export small
quantities to England. But this fact at once excited alarm, and
the subject proposed to the attention of the House of Commons, a
committee was, in IToO, appointed "To check the danger of
American rivalry.'' And the means, proposed by that committee,
fell little short of positive prohibition. The bill introduced by
them, and subsequently passed by the House, while it admitted
American iron in its rudest form to be imported free of duty, "for-
bade the smiths of America to erect any mill for slitting or rolling
iron, or any plating forge to work with a tilt-hammer, or any fur-
nace for making steel." And at the very same time that these
shackles for the labor of free men were forged, and England put
her foot upon these nascent manufactories in her colonies, every
restraint was taken away from the slave-trade, the whole coast of
Africa, from Sallee to the Cape of Good Hope, was thrown open
to all the subjects of the king, " that the colonies might be filled
\cith slaves, xoho icould neither trouble Britain with fears of en-
couraging political independence, nor compete in their industry
with British workshojis."^
* Bancroft, vol. iii. p. 416.
f Ibid., vol. iv. p. 02.
BLAVEEY AND THE WAR.
21
But we must hasten, to notice, another long series of facts, that
uro v.f the highest moment, to be known and remembered, by all
who would fully understand the history of American slavery.
Cluxrhj connected in time with the purpose of our national inde-
J>rn,hncc, and its achievement, was the inauguration of an anti-
nlarrry jiolicy.
This was just what might have been expected, upon the suppo-
Kition. that we have truthfully portrayed the feelings that were gen-
t^ruMv prevalent on this subject, during our colonial history. The
•■olonioR opposed to the extension of slavery in their midst, and
only prevented from successfully arresting its progress, by the inter-
position of roval authority; the conclusion is irresistible that with
tluu authority denied, and successfully resisted, the inception of
onuuuMpation'would immediately follow. And so it was. Between
tho yours 1777 and 1804, eight out of the thirteen colonies pro-
vidod, by special legislative enactments, for the entire extinction,
lhi»ughout their whole territory, of slavery. And that the re-
lu^iudor did not follow so goodly an example, is to be explained by
lUo fact, that the slave-trade had been in them so effectually plied
»s> uv a measure, to subdue that opposition to slavery which had
oiu-,^ boen so general. We say " in a measure" subdued it, for
♦unv in some of these colonies, we find legislative acts proposed or
Adopted, that were directly intended to arrest the progress of
s^Hx cry, and thus prepare the way for its final abolition. Especially
*as tins true of the Virginia colony, in whose soil this institution
^•sk as we have seen, first planted. In October, 1778, the Gen-
e«kl Assembly of Virginia passed an act, declaring that "no slave
^'^■%.:d thereafter be brought into this commomuealth by land or
l\v *^ior, and\;iat every slave imported contrary thereto, should
«Wt> such importation be free."* Here both the domestic, and
K>rv;j;-u slave-trade were, by statute, positively prohibited. Every
cbt*-nol of supply was cut off. The new Constitution, also, for
Vi's-^inia, prepared and proposed by Jefferson a few years subse-
^J*^-. to this, contained a provision, by which all born after the
yv^k-: ISOO should be free.f And it was with reference to this pro-
?vvvi,;on that Washington, in writing to his nephew, Lawrence
i v* ^ in August, 1797, says : "I wish from my soul that the leg-
>^*.iaY of this State could see the policy of a gradual abolition of
* Tuckers Blackstone, vol. ii. p. 47, Appendix,
f Siroud 8 Laws ot Slavery, p. 6.
22 SLAVERY AND THE WAR.
slavery. It might prevent much future mischief. "* And, though
this clause of the constitution was finally rejected, yet how expres-
sive of the true anti-slavery feeling that then pervaded Virginia is
the fact, asserted by Jefferson, that 10,000 slaves were voluntarily
emancipated in that State during the first ten years of our exist-
ence as an independent people !f
Maryland, also, in 1783 prohibited the further importation of
slaves into her territory, and removed all legal restrictions on
emancipation ; and three years later, in ITSfi, North Carolina de-
clared the introduction of slaves into that State "of evil conse-
quence and highly impolitic," and imposed a duty of five pounds
on each slave thus imported. |
But it is not in the acts of the separate States, or colonies otily,
that, coeval with the purpose and achievement of our independ-
ence, we can see the inception of an anti-slavery policy. It is
readily discovered in the first Congress of Delegates, in the Con-
vention that framed our Constitution, and in the early sessions of
our Federal Congress. Among the first measures adopted by the
Congress of Delegates, which commenced its sessions in Phila-
delphia on the 5th of September, 17 T 4, and which was, let it be
remembered, the first representative body of the colonies, was — as
one of the articles of the non-importation agreement — a solemn
pledge to abstain from, and discountenance the slave-trade. § And,
as if this single act was insufficient, or might be overlooked in the
details with which it was there connected, the pledge was after-
ward changed into a positive prohibition. On the 6th of April,
1776, it was resolved that no slaves be imported into any of the
thirteen colonies. || And so, again, when in 1787 — the same year
in which the Federal Constitution was framed — Virginia ceded the
territory northwest of the Ohio River to the "Confederation," the
condition of its acceptance by the Continental Congress was, that
slavery should never be permitted there. And the insertion of this
condition in the ordinance, not only secured the vote of all the South-
ern States then represented in Congress, but, according to Mr.
Benton, it was "pre-eminently the work of the South." "The
* Irving's Washington, vol. v. p. 299.
I Twenty-First Report of Pennsylvania Anti-Slavery Society, p. 7.
X Political Text Book, p. 50.
I Elliot's Debates on the Federal Constitution, vol. i. p. 44.
II Ibid., p. 54,
SLAVEUY AND THE WAR. 23
ordinance for the governraent of the territory was rei)orted by a
coniiiiittee of five members, of wliom three were from slaveholdlug
States, and two — and one of them the clmirraau — were from Vir-
ginia alone."* Indeed, tliat the great conception of j)rohiljiting
slavery iu that territory belongs to Jefferson, there can be no
doubt. t
And that a similar policy, was designed to be pursued, by the
framers of our Federal Constitution, we are constrained to believe.
The idea, that that instrument .should ever become the great bul-
wark of slavery in this land, perpetuating its existence where
already established, and promoting its extension into new terri-
tories, would have been most abhorrent, to a large majority of
those who assisted in its construction. In their earnest desire, to
compact into one united and harmonious government, States so
widely separated from each other iu social institutions, and geo-
graphical boundaries; they did indeed give, iu the formation of
the Constitution, certain advantages to slavery, which we now can-
not but deeply regret ; but it was all with the conviction, that the
system would certainly pass away, before the advancing power of
civilization and freedom. Moreover, it is to be remembered that
when the Constitution of the United Slates was formed, slavery
had been abolished iu hut four, of the thirteen States, that were
then confederated.
In judging of the true spirit of any assembly of men, it is like-
wise obvious, that we must look not simply at the conclusions to
which the majority reached, but also at the whole history of the
discussions which may have preceded these conclusions, and at the
peculiar circumstances which may have favored them. A judg-
ment formed, entirely apart from such considerations, may clearly
be entirely erroneous. Let us apply this principle to the case
before us.
It is well k'lown that our Constitution contains three provisions
with reference to slavery, though the word itself never occurs in
the whole instrument. It provides, that three-fifths of those who
are held iu slavery, shall be included within the enumeration of
inhabitants, by which the ratio of representation is determined;
(Article I. Section 2;) it forbade the prohibiting by Congress of
the slave-trade prior to the year 1808, (Article I. Section 9;) and
* Thirty Years in the United States Senate, vol. i. pp. 133, 134.
f Stroud's Laws of Slavery, p. 118.
24 SLAVERY AND THE WAR.
it provides for the rendition of persons " held to service or labor
in one State, under the laws thereof," who have escaped " into
another," (Article IV. Section 2.)
I. With regard to the first of these provisions, we concede that
it was a lamentable concession to slavery, and likewise that it has
been the cause of incalculable injury to this nation. No argument
can defend it. The legislative representation of slaves, by their
masters, is a monstrous anomaly in a republican government.
But, conceding all this, does it follow that, in the introduction of
this provision into the Constitution, its framers designed to make
that instrument pro-slavery, either in its spirit or influence ? It
is to be remembered, that the question which most profoundly agi-
tated that Convention, was the apportionment of the congressional
representatives among the several States. Some contended for an
equality of representation, such as was secured to them by the
old "Articles of Confederation;" others demanded that the repre-
sentation should be in proportion either to wealth or population.
The discussion was long and violent. Threats were added to
arguments. Some of the smaller States talked of "foreign powers
who would take them by the hand,"* should the Convention de-
termine upon an inequality of suffrage. Franklin, almost in despair
of human help, moved that hereafter the Convention, every morn-
ing, implore the Divine blessing upon its deliberations, and en-
forced his motion by this weighty inquiry: "As a sparrow does
not fall without Divine permission, can we suppose that govern-
ments are ever erected without His will ?"-|- Indeed, during the
fortnight that was spent in the discussion of this subject, the
Convention was, in the language of one of its own members, " on
the very verge of dissoh'tio7i.'' It was *' scarce held together by
the strength of a hair."l And finally a harmonious conclusion
was reached only by mutual concessions. The larger States con-
sented to an equal representation in the Senate; the smaller
States to an unequal representation in the House of Representa-
tives. And, as in the case of the large slaveholding States, the
white population was small in comparison with that which the
large free States contained, the equality of representation between
the two, was sought to be promoted by adding, in the former in-
stances, to the enumeration of the free inhabitants, three-fiftha of
* Elliot's Debates on the Federal Constitution, vol. i. p. 473.
t Ibid., p. 4C0. X Ibid., p. 358.
SLAVERY AND THE WAR. 25
nil olhrr peri<o)is. Thus, it was entirely as a compromise, and
one, too, deemed at the time essential to the formation of any
federative system, that this provision was introduced into our Con-
stitution.
But though such was its character, let no one imagine that it
was permitted to pass, in silence, that body. The very men who
finally voted for it, as a concession necessary or expedient to be
made, still declared, in the most stirring words, their faith in its
unrighteousness. An addres,-; delivered before the legislature of
Maryland, by Luther Martin, Esq., Attorney-General of the StUe,
and one of its delegates to the Convention that framed the Federal
Constitution, contains this remarkable paragraph : —
" With respect to that part of the §econd section of the first article,
which relates to the ai^portionmeiit of representation and direct tax-
ation, tliere were considerable objections made to it, besides the great
objection of inequality. It was urged, that no principle could justify
taking slaves into comi)utati(iii in a]iportioning the number of represent-
atives a i^tate should have in the (jovernnient ; that it involved the ab-
surdity of increasing the power of a State in making laws for free men
in proportion as that Htate violated the right.- of freedom ; that it might
be proper to take slaves into consideration when taxes were to be appor-
tioned, because it had a tendency to discourage slavery; but to take
them into account in giving representation, tended to continue that
infamous traflic ; that slaves could not be taken into account as men, or
citizens, because they were not admitted to the rights of citizens in the
States which adopted or continued slavery. If they were to be taken
into account as property, it was asked what peculiar circumstance should
render this property (of all others the most odious in its nature) entitled
to the high privilege of conferring consequence and power in the Gov-
ernment to its possessors, rather than any other property? and why
slaves should, as property, be taken into account rather than horses,
cattle, mules, or any other species ? And it was observed, by an honorable
memlier from Massachusetts, that he considered it as dishonorable and
humiliating to enter into compact with the slaves of the Southern States,
as it would with the horses aud mules of the Eastern."*
* Elliot's Debates on the Federal Constitution, vol. i. p. 8G3.
It may be worthy of remark, in this connection, as illustrating the general
truth of" our position, that, although the " member from ^lassachuselts"
opposed sii.-^trenuously by his speech tiiis provision of the Constitution, yet
by his \ote lie supported it. The jiriuciple was first introduc»'d by a reso-
lution inovc'l by James Wilson, of Pennsylvania, June 11, 17H7. Massa-
chusetts voted in the affirmative. (Ibid., vol. i. 109.j
26 SLAVERY AND THE WAR.
II. With regard to the constitutional provision that "'the mi-
gration or importation of such ])ersons as any of the Statos now
existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by
Congress prior to 1808" — the second reference, as we have seen, ,
that that instrument makes to slavery — there are several things
that should be said, (a) It did not preclude, but implied, the
right of the States severally to prohibit the importation of slaves
in their own domain. (6) It did not prevent Congress at any
time from excluding the traffic from the territories, (c) It was
a virtual concession of the iniquity of the trade ; it set the seal
of the country's reprobation upon it. (d) In a measure it fore-
shadowed its coming end. To say that prior to 1808 Congress
shall not prohibit in any State the slave-trade, is almost tanta-
mount to saying that after that it may, and, in all probal)ility, will.
It was a sure prophecy of its destruction.
Moreover, from the history of the Convention we learn that the
introduction of this provision into the Constitution, was the result
of a compromise between the clashing interests of commerce and
slavery. When the first draft of the Constitution was reported,
(August 6, 1787,) it contained one section, (Article YII. Section
4,) which entirely forbade Congress at any time from proliil)iting
the slave-trade, and another, which provided (Article YII. Section
6) that "No navigation act should be passed without the assent of
two-thirds of the members present in each h(^use."* The former
of these sections the South were solicitous to retain ; the latter
the Xorth were as anxious to reject. The one fostered slavery,
the other would cripple commerce. The result that was finally
reached through a committee appointed " to reconcile these con-
flicting interests," was the entire omission of the section restricting
navigation acts, and the amendment of that which related to the
importation of slaves, so as to limit, to a certain specified time,
its prohibition by Congress. f A member of that cuuimitlee thus
speaks of its deliberations: "I found the Eadern ,bV«/'.s, not-
withstanding their aversion to slaves, very willing to indulge the
Southern States, at least with a temporary liberty to pro.-^ecute
the slave-trade; provided the ^uthern States would, in their turn,
gratify Ihem by laying no restriction on navigation actn ; and
after a very little while the committee, by a great majority, agreed
to such a report.";};
* Elliot's Debates on the Federal Constitution, vol. i. p. 227.
t Ibid., p. 261. t I'^i'i-. P- 37n
SLAVERY AND THE WAR. 87
But it was not without considerable" opposition that this report
received the sanction of the Convention. Indeed, there is hardly
anything in the whole history of that body more worthy of remark
than the bold attacks upon slavery whicli were made in connection
with that discussion. " In a government formed preteiidedly on
the principles of liberty, and for its preservation, to have a pro-
vision, not only putting it out of its power at once to restrain and
prevent the slave trade, but even encouraging that infamous traffic,
ought," it was contended, "to be considered as a solemn mockery
of, and insult to that God whose protection we had implored ; and
could not fail to hold us up in detestation, and render us contempt-
ible to every true friend of liberty in the world." * * "Slavery"
was alleged to be " inconsistent with the genius of republicanism,
and has a tendency to destroy those principles on which it is sup-
ported." * * It was likewise urged that " national crimes can
only be, and frequently are, punished in this world by national
judgments, and that the continuance of the slave-trade, and thus
giving it a national sanction and encouragement, ought to be con-
sidered as justly exposing us to the displeasure and vengeance of
Him who is equally Lord of all, and who views with equal eye the
poor African slave and his American master."* Nor was this
opposition confined to the non-slaveholding States. The vote of
Virginia was uniformly against this provision of the Constitution;"}"
and the fact of its existence in that instrument was employed as an
argument for its rejection before the Legislature of Maryland.
"You will perceive, Sir," said Luther Martin, in the address
already referred to, "not only that the general government is pro-
hibited from interfering in the slave-trade before the year 1808,
but that there is no provision in the Constitution that it shall
afterwards be prohibited, nor any security that such prohibition will
ever take place ! and I think there is great reason to believe that, if
the importation of slaves is permitted until the year 1808, it will not
be prohibited afterwards. At this time %ve do not generally hold
this commerce in so yreat abhorrence as we have done. When
our liberties were at stake, we warmly felt for the common rights
of men. The danger being thought to be past which threatened
ourselves, we are daily growing more insensible to those rights. "J
^ * Elliot's Debates on the Federal Constitution, vol. i. pp. 378, 374.
t Ibid , vol. i. p. 205.
X Ibid., vol. i. pp. 374, 375.
28 SLAVERY AND THE WAB.
III. Of that provision of the Constitution which relates to the
rendition of fugitive slaves, the question has been much agitated,
whether its intent was to clothe Congress with the power of legis-
lating in respect to the surrender of such persons, or whether it was
intended to leave it to the several States to provide a mode for the
investigation of such claims, and, if found for the claimants, to de-
liver up to them the fugitives. That regarding alone the letter of
the provision, it is, at least, susceptible of this latter interpretation,
few, we suppose, would deny. It was thus that Daniel Webster,
the greatest Constitutional lawyer of his age, if not of our country,
understood it, and the fact that it was adopted by the nuauimous
vote of the Convention certainly favors such interpretation. Al-
though, then, the Supreme Court of the United States has set this
question, legally, at rest, by deciding that the jjoiver of legislating
with respect to fugitive slaves belongs exclnsivehj to the Federal
government;* and though that government has, in accordance
vnth this decision, frequently legislated upon the sul)Ject, yet for
no one of these acts, whatever may be their character, can the Con-
stitution be certainhj held responsible. No one can positively
afiSrm that the fraraers of that instrument ever designed to confer
such authority. All for which it can properly be held responsible
is the simple fact of the return to bondage of those who may have
escaped from it. And if free and slave States are in any way to
confederate, is not such a provision essential ? Where the territory
of freedom is continuous to that of slavery, can the line of demar-
kation be preserved distinct, save by some arrangement that will
prevent liberty from being secured by its simple passage ? The
injustice of the rendition of fugitive slaves iu States confederated
under one government, lies not in the fact of the rendition, for
which the Constitution alone provides, but in the mode by which
that end is secured, by special legislative enactments.
And a similar anti-slavery policy can easily be traced through
the first sessions of our Federal Congress. Men utterly ignore the
early history of our national government, who suppose that its
power was employed in conserving, and upholding slavery. The
very reverse was true. Many solemn acts of legislation, sanctioned
by every branch of our national administration, were passed, with
the avowed purpose of restricting, limiting, and ultimately de-
stroying this institution. The fathers of our republic were per-
* 16 Peters, pp. 539, 622,
SLAVERY AND THE WAR. J0
sistent in their efforts to curtail, and finally to destroy the slave-
trade. They sought entirely to dry up the fountain of this evil, to
cut off the source of its supply, and thus, in time, to secure liberty
to the whole laud. Let us verify this assertion by a brief record
of facts.
Two years after tlie adoption of our Federal Constitution by
Conventions of the several States, Congress prohibited the for-
sign slave-trade. On the 22d of March, 1794, an act was passed,
declaring that "no citizen or resident of the country should build,
equip, or send out any ship or vessel to any foreign country ta pro-
cure the inhabitants thereof, or to transport them to &uy foreign
j)lace ov port to be sold or disposed of as slaves." And the pen-
alty annexed to this statute was the confiscation of the vessel, and
a fine of $200 for each person so taken or sold. And here, it is
well to remark, that this ast was passed thirteen years before a
similar policy was established by the English government. In-
stead, therefore, of being constrained by the sentiment of other
nations to assume this position, it was in advance of that senti-
ment, and tended to create it. We were not here the slow imita-
tors of others, but rather the noljle exemplar, that they have tardily
followed.
And, that this act might be still more effectual in the destruction
of tlie foreign slave-trade, it was, on the 10th of May, 1800, supple-
mented by another, which declared " that no citizen or resident of the
United States should own, or have any right of property in any
ship or vessel engaged in the slave-trade anywhere upon the sea,
no matter from what place or port it might sail." This act was also
enforced by new and more severe penalties. " It prohibited any sailor
from serving on board of a slaver, and authorized our commissioned
vessels to seize any ship engaged in this trade, and bring her into
port for condemnation."
Xor was it the foreign slave-trade alone that our national Con-
gress in its earlier sessions sought to destroy. Unable, as we have
seen, prior to 1808, by a special provision of the Constitution, to
prohibit "the migration or importation of such persons as any of
the States now existing shall think proper to admit," it yet had the
right of such a prohibition with reference to the Territories, and
did not scruple, in some instances, to exercise it. On the 7th of
J^T^ril, 1798, an act was passed by Congress, authorizing the estab-
lishment of a government in the Mississippi Territory, tiie 7th sec-
tion of which provides "That after the establishfaient of the aforp-
30 SLAVERY AND THE WAR.
said government it shall not be lawful for any person or persons to
import or bring into the said Mississippi Territory, from any port
or place without the limits of the United States, or to cause to be
imported * * any slave or slaves, and that every person so
offending * * shall forfeit * * for each slave so iuiported
* * the sum of $300 * * and that every slave so imported
shall thereupon become entitled to, and receive his or her free-
dom."* And the provision of a similar nature, incorporated into
the Act of Congress, passed March 2Gth, 1804, entitled "An Act
erecting Louisiana into two territ(jries, and providing for the tem-
porary government thereof," is still more hostile to slavery. It
prohibits the introduction into Louisiana Territory "from any
port or place ivithin,^^ as well as without "the limits of the United
States * * a7^y slave or .-slaves which had been imported since
the first of May, 1798, into any port or place within the limits of
the United States, or which should be imported thereafter." And
contains, in addition, this provision, "And no slave or slaves shall
directly or indirectly be introduced into said territory, except by a
citizen of the United States removing into said territory /or actual
settlement, SLud being at the time of such removal bona Jide owner
of such slave or slaves; and every slave imported or brought into
the said territory, contrary to the provisions q? this act, shall
thereupon be entitled to and receive his freedom. "f
But these attempts to destroy the slave trade abroad, and to
curtail it at home, were only preliminary to its entire prohibition ;
and it is an interesting fact that that was decreed at the very ear-
liest day on which Congress had the power. On the second of
March, 180T, it was enacted "that from and after January 1, 1808,
it shall not be lawful to import or bring into the United States, or
the territories thereof, from any foreign kingdom, place, or country,
any negro, mulatto, or person of color as a slave, or to be held to
service and labor." The penalty incurred for a violation of this
statute was the confiscation of the vessel, and a fine of $20,000 each
against the parties engaged, their aiders and abettors. To enforce
it, the President was also empowered to employ the naval forces of
the nation.
By a subsequent act this penalty was increased. Imprisonment
was added to fines, and the forfeiture of property. On the 20th of
* Acts of the 2d Session of the Fifth Congress, ch. 45.
f 2 Story's Laws, p. 937.
SLAVERY AND THE WAR. 31
April, 1818, Congress passed a statute providing that all persons
convicted of being in any way engaged in the slave-trade should
"be imprisoned for a term not exceeding seven years, nor less than
three years." And finally, as a fitting conclnsion to this policy, so
persistently pursued through a long course of years. Congress, on
the 15tli of May, 1820, declared the slave-trade, and the act of de-
taining negroes or mulattoes, with intent to make them slaves, to
be piracy, and provided that any person whatever who should
engage iu the trade, or assist in detaining such persons, with the
intent to make them slaves, should be adjudged o. pirate, and as
such shall suffer death.
But this brings us to the last point in the history of American
Slavery that we propose in this article to notice. Its defenders
are entirely of modern times. The idea that the involuntary
servitude of reasonable beings, except as a punishment for crime,
was indefensibly wrong, was, until a little more than a quarter of
a century ago, almost universal ; and in respect to the existence
of such a servitude here, it was, until the time just mentioned,
everywhere spoken of as a great moral and political evil.
In confirmation of this position, it is pertinent to refer to the
whole series of facts just detailed ; for surely men who, by legis-
lative enactments continued for a long course of years, sought to
limit, curtail, and ultimately destroy the institution of slavery,
could not have regarded it, as either morally right or politically
expedient. We are not wont to dry up a fountain, when we be-
lieve that the streams which issue from it, flow out in blessings to
the world; nor do we lay the axe at the root of a tree whose fruit
wc know to he pleasant and healthful. If men believed that the
introduction of a single slave into this land was a crime against
humanity, worthy of death, and if they were ready to embody that
faith in a positive statute, how could they regard as innocent his
continuance in bondage, and the entail of servitude upon his latest
posterity? The importation into this country of Africans, as
slaves, a wrong, so deep that blood alone could atone for it, the
wrong of holding them hopelessly and forever in that relation ig,
from the premise, we contend, a logical conclusion. Trun, a wise
expediency and a due regard to Chri.st's great law of love, may
•Jot demand their immediate enfranchisement. Strangers in a
strange land, and savages in the midst of civilization, such a
course vxight only deepen the wrong that they have already suf-
32 SLAVERY AND THE WAR.
fered. With the intent of preparing them for freedom, its enjoy-
ment might rightfully be temporarily denied them.
Precisely this was the view of American slavery that, until quite
recently, was universally cherished in this land. Those honored men
of our nation who stood up, as we have seen, so boldly in their oppo-
sition to the slave-trade, who branded it as inhuman and infamous,
who first fined, and then imprisoned, and then pronounced as worthy
of death, all who were in any way engaged in it, were not so illog-
ical as to fail to see the true scope and bearing of their acts. No 1
They saw it, and meant that the world should see it. Their severe
condemnation of the slave-trade, and their persistent efforts to de-
stroy it, was the purposed avowal of their faith, that every system
of involuntary servitude that was not designed to ultimate in uni-
versal freedom, and that was not conducted so as certainly to secure
this end, was indefensibly wrong.
But it is not upon any inference alone, however logical, that we
rest our position. The frequent introduction of slavery, as a topic
of earnest discussion, in our National Congress, was one of the
unavoidable results of its existence. The feature of society that
distinguished one portion of our Union from the other, and that
caused the interests of one section to conflict with those of the
other, there was in fact scarcely a single question of national policy,
that was not in some measure complicated with it, and tliat conse-
quently did not involve its consideration. And surely if, in any
place, and under any circumstances, slavery would find valiant
defenders, here is the place and the occasion. Men, we know, in
the heat of debate and under the irritation of opposing sentiments,
often go much further in the statement of their own, than their
cooler judgment would allow. In reading, then, the discussions
of slavery that were had in the early sessions of our National Con-
gress, how natural the expectation that we would find there, if
anywhere, this institution, in its righteousness and humanity,
stoutly defended. But it is not so. Southern statesmen, in those
days, were indeed often earnest in the maintenance of those rights
which they supposed the Constitution secured to their peculiar
institution, but seldom if ever, did they boldly avow it to be in
itself just and humane. Their more general policy was frankly to
acknowledge slavery as an evil, for the present to be borne pa-
tiently and kindly, but in the future to be, in some way unseen by
them, forever abolished.
From the many illustrations of this truth which might be given
SLAVERY AND THE WAR. 83
we will select two, not because they are any more striking than
many others, but because they are in time the nearest that we can
discover to that most lamentable change of sentiment which on
this subject has recently taken place.
One of the most earnest, protracted, and exciting debates that
ever took place in our National Congress, was in connection with
the admission of Missouri as a State into the Federal Union.
Commencing as early as April, 1818, it was continued until the
commencement of 1821, and was oftentimes conducted with so
much acrimony and sectional jealousy, as to threaten the very sta-
bility of the government. Jefferson, the sun of whose life was then
near its setting, was greatly alarmed, and frequently expressed his
fear that that union of States, winch he had done so much to form,
was on the eve of dissolution. And, indeed, had it not been for
what is usually called the "Missouri Compromise," we can hardly
see how such a catastrophe could have been avoided. By that act
mutual concessions were made ; nor is it easy to see which party
was really the gainer. Missouri, admitted as a slaveholding State
into the Union, slavery was, on the other hand, forever prohibited
from an extent of territory larger than the area of all the Atlantic
Slave States put together. Moreover, it is to be remembered that,
contemporaneous with this act, was the admission of Maine as a
free State, and also that treaty which, in acquiring Florida, ceded
Texas, the largest possession of the United States south of the
proposed line, to Spain. Mr. Benton is doubtless mistaken in
asserting that this "compromise" was "all clear gain to the anti-
slavery side of the question;"* or, again, that "it yielded forever
to the free States the absolute predominance in the Union."t But
no less in error we think, are those who, on the other side, regard
it as a signal triumph of slavery over freedom. It was emphat-
ically a "compromise."
But what in this protracted and earnest discussion most con-
cerns us here to notice, is the almost entire absence of any defense
of slavery, either upon moral or political grounds. The men who
so persistently demanded that no restrictions should be put upon
slavery in Missouri, founded their argument almost entirely upon
those rights which the Constitution secured to the separate States.
■» Benton's Thirty Years in the U. S. Senate, vol. i. p. 5.
t Ibid., vol. ii. p. 140.
3
34 SLAVERY AND THE WAR.
They did not contend that slavery should be extended because it
was a good institution, approved of God, and fraught with bless-
ings to society. The very reverse was true. They acknowledged
it as an evil, apologized for its existence in their midst, condemned
the whole system as essentially unrighteous, and expressed their
confident hope that the institution would in time be entirely re-
moved from our land. How remarkable this fact ! That no one
may be skeptical as to its truthfulness, let us quote a few sentences
from several of the memorable speeches that were then made.
"Sir! I envy," said John Randolph, "neither the head nor the
heart of any man from the North who rises here to defend slavery."
"Slavery was an et"?7," said Senator Elliott, of Georgia, found in
this country at the formation of the present government, and it
wsiS tolerated, only because it could not be remedied."* "Gen-
tlemen tell us," said Mr. Lowrie, of Pennsylvania, "that slavery is
an evil, and that they lament its existence, and yet, strange as it
may seem, they contend for the extension of this evil to the peace-
ful regions west of the Mississippi.""!" "Many of those who have
opposed this amendment," said John Sergeant, of Pennsylvania —
that is, the amendment prohibiting slavery from Missouri — "have
agreed with us in characterizing slavery as an evil and a curse, in
language stronger than we should perhaps be at liberty to use.";};
A writer in Niles' Register for March 11,1820, reviewing the whole
debate on this subject, says: "Few, if any, are bold enough to advo-
cate the practice of slavery as being right in itself, or dare to justify
it, except on the plea of necessity." Indeed, Mr. Clay, in his cele-
brated speech near the close of this discussion, ventured to rebuke
his Southern brethren for conceding so frankly the unrighteousness
of slavery, characterizing it as an "unnecessary concession." Nor
should we here fail to mention, as illustrating still further how
almost universally prevalent anti-slavery sentiments then were, the
fact, that in connection with this great debate, the legislatures of
New York, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey, all unan>7n<>itslypa.s<ed
resolutions, not only objecting to the admission of Missouri as a
slaveholding State into the Union, but objecting hereafter to the
admission of any territory as a State, without making the prohi-
bition of slavery an indispensable condition of its admission. §
* Niles' Register, vol. xvii. p. 408. f Ibid., vol. xvii. p. 41'».
J Ibid., vol. xviii. p. 382. g Political Text-Book, [>. '><>■
SLAVERY AND THE WAR. 35
The other Congressional debate that I have selected as illus-
trating this truth, occurred in the Senate about nine years after
the one we have just noticed, and has been made especially memo-
rable by the well-known reply of Webster to Hayue. The discus-
sion did not in itself involve the subject of slavery. It arose upon
a motion to limit the sales of the public lands ; but as this natu-
rally led to some comparison between the growth of free and slave
territory, a debate upon the whole subject soon followed; and, for
many reasons, the discussion was one peculiarly irritating to the
South. It came upon them unexpectedly; wasnotreally germain to
the subject ; seemed to be introduced for the very purpose of provok-
ing reply and stirring up anger ; and contained many incontrovertible
facts, that were most damaging to slavery. Thus, comparing Ken-
tucky and Ohio, Mr. Webster attributed the superior improvement
and population of the latter, to its exemptiou from the evils of
slavery, and with this as an example, generalized, to what must
always be the eflfect in any State, of its permission or prohibition.
In reply, the principal speakers were Mr. Hayue, of South Caro-
lina, and Mr. Benton, of Missouri, and though they both resented,
with warmth, as a reflection upon the Slave States, this disadvan-
tageous comparison, they still essayed no defense of slavery, but,
on the contrary, fully and freely admitted it to be a great evil.
The spirit of their speeches was, in this regard, precisely like
that which characterized — as we have already seen — the debate
on the Missouri controversy. We extract a few sentences from
one of the speeches of Mr. Benton, which will not only confirm
our present position, but throw light upon others that we have
previously in this article considered. Addressing himself to the
North, and declaring his purpose "to disabuse them of some erro-
neous impressions," Mr. Benton remarks: —
"To them I can truly say that slavery, in the abstract, has but few
advocates or defenders in the slaveholding States, and that slavery as
it is, an hereditary institution descended upon us from our ancestors,
would have fewer advocates among us than it has, if those who have
nothing to do with the subject would only let us alone. * * The views
of hading men in the North and the South were indisputably the same
in the earlier periods of our government. Of this our legislative history
contains the highest proof. The foreign slave-trade was prohibited in
Virginia as soon as the Revolution began. It was one of her first acts
of sovereignty. In the convention of that State which adopted the Fed-
eral Constitution, it was an objection to that instrument that it tuk-rated
the African slave-trade fur twenty years. Nothing that has appeared
36 SLAVERY AND THE WAR.
since has surpassed the indignant denunciations of this tradBc by Patrick
Henry. George Mason, and others in that convention."*
But from this view of what, until quite recently, was the auti-
slavery sentiment of this country, as evinced by the spirit of our
Congressional debates, let us now for one moment turn to observe
the same fact as illustrated by the deliverances of different religious
bodies.
Slavery, a moral question, and having so many points of
practical contact with the Church, nothing is more natural than
the supposition that it would oftentimes find its way into the
Church's highest convocations, and constrain from them some ex-
pression of opinion as to its true character. And though these
deliverances do not certainly indicate the general sentiment that
might at the time prevail, yet are they the true exponents of the
Church's feeling, and with tin's it is reasonable to infer that most
good men agreed. What, then, has the Church of Christ in former
times said of this institution ? What opinion of its moral charac-
ter has she solemnly promulgated ? We well know that now, and
for some years past, large bodies of professed Christians in this
land, have given to slavery their unqualified approval. They have
pronounced their solemn benediction upon it. They have dared
to speak of it as a divine institution, fraught with blessings to tjoth
of the parties between wliom it subsists, and. destined to continue
until the latest generation. How startling the contrast I)etween
these deliverances of the modern Church, and those in which our
fathers and theirs once all together united ! The following minute
was adopted by the Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church
in 1784:—
"Every member in our Society who has slaves in those States wliere
the law will admit of freeing them, shall, after notice given him by the
preacher, set them free within twelve months, (except in Virginia,
and there within two years,) at specified periods, according to age.
Every person concerned who will not comply with these rules, shall
have liberty to withdraw within twelve months after the notice is given,
otherwise to be excluded. No person holding slaves shall in future be
admitted into the Society until he previously comply with these rules
respecting slavery."!
And though at a subsequent Conference these regulations were
* Benton'a Thirty Years in the U. S. Senate, vol. i. p. 136.
t Lee's History of the Methodists.
SLAVERY AND THE WAR. 37
suspended, yet in 171' 7 tliis paragraph was added to the Discipline
of that denomination : —
"The preachers and other members of our Society are requested to
consider the sul)iect of negro slavery with deep attentiitn, and that they
imjiart to the General Conference, through the medium of the Yearly
Conference, or otherwise, any important thoughts on the subject, that
the Conference may have full light, in order to take further steps toward
eradicating this enormous evil from that part of the Church of Christ
and God with which they are connected."*
At a meeting of the General Committee of the Bajiiisis of Vir-
ginia, in 1789, the following resolution was adopted: —
"Resolved, That slavery is a violent deprivation of the rights of
nature, and inconsistent with republican government, and therefore we
recommend it to our brethren to make use of every measure to extir-
pate this horrid evil from the land, and pray Almighty God that our
honorable legislature may have it in their power to proclaim this great
jubilee, consistent with the principles of good policy."!
The General Synod of the Presbyterian Church, as early as 1787,
recommended "in the warmest terms to every member of that
body, and to all the churches and families under their care, to do
everything in their power, consistent with the rights of civil society,
to promote the ahoUiion of slave7'y, and the instruction of negroes,
whether bond or free ;" and four years after the organization of
the first General Assembly, (1793,) that body expressed their ap-
probation of this action, by ordering that it be published in their
minutes.;}; Two years later than this (1795) the General Assem-
bly assured " all the churches under their care that they viewed
with the deepest concern any vestiges of slavery which may exist
in this country ;"§ and subsequently (1815) " expressed their regret
that the slavery of Africans and their descendants still continues in
so many places, and even among those within the bounds of the
church."]] In 1818, the same body "having taken into consider-
ation the subject of slavery," thus " make known their" u.nanimous
"sentiments upon it to the churches and people under their care."
"We consider the voluntary enslaving of one part of the human race
by another as a gross violation of the most precious and sacred rights of
* Benezot. Views of Slavery, p. 102. t ^^>'"^' V- ^^"■
X Assembly's Digest, p. 268. i Ibid., p. '2tJ'J.
II Ibid., p. 271.
38 SLAVERY AND THE WAR.
human nature, as utterly inconsistent with the law of God, which requires
ns to love our neighbor as ourselves, and as totally unreconcilable with
the spirit and principles of the Gospel of Christ, which enjoin that 'AH
thing? whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to
them.' * * * We rejoice that the Church to which we belong com-
menced as early as any other in this country the good work of endeavor-
ino- to put an end to slavery, and that in the same work many of its mem-
bers have ever since I)een, and now are among the most active, vigorous,
and efficient laborers. * * ♦ "We earnestly exhort them to continue,
and, if possible, to increase their exertion, to effect the total abolition of
slavery."*
Nor were these solemn denunciations of the sin of slavery con-
fined to the highest judicatory of the church, where, it might be
said, that Xorthern influence prevailed. The Synod of Kentucky,
in 1835, appointed a committee "to digest and prepare a plan for
the moral and religious instruction of our slaves, and for their
future emancipation,'' Q,nd in their report, adopted the year fol-
lowing, such declarations as these occur: —
" We all admit that the system of slavery, which exists among us, is
not right.f * * Without any crime on the part of its unfortunate
subjects, they are deprived for life, and their posterity after them, of the
right to property, of the right to liberty, of the right to personal security.
These odious features are not the excrescences upon the system, they are
the system itself; they are its essential constituent parts. And can any
man believe that any such a thing as this is not sinful, that it is not hated
by God, and ought not to be abhorred and abolished by man •?+***
This work must be done, or wrath will come upon us. The groans of
millions do not rise forever unheeded before the throne of the Almighty.
The hour of doom must soon arrive, the storm must soon gather, the bolt
of destruction must soon be hurled, and the guilty must soon he dashed
in pieces. The voice of history and the voice of inspiration both warn us
that the catastrophe must come, unless averted by repentance. "§
Such, then, until quite recently, was public opinion in this
country upon the subject of slavery, as manifested, in the spirit of
oar Congressional debates, and in the deliverances of the Christian
Church. Indeed, a distinguished jurist, whose researches upon this
subject entitle his opinion to peculiar weight, says, "About the year
* Assembly's Digest, pp. 272, 273.
f Enormity of the Slave-trade, p. 76.
X Ibid., p. 81.
I Ibid., p. 108.
BLAVERY AKD THE WAR. 89
1830, for the first time, so far as my information extendg. among
men of the least political repute, it was announced by a Governor
of South Carolina that the institution of slavery was eminently
useful and beneficent."*
Should there be any exception to this remark, many things,
which we need not here stop particularly to mention, would
point to Mr. Calhoun, the distinguished senator of the same
State. The " Magnus Apollo" of slavery in these later days,
it is difiBcult to think of him as anything else than its stout de-
fender. And yet so it was. Mr. Calhoun did not always think
that American slavery was a benign institution, and that it should
be perpetuated in this land. He was a convert, like all his other
brethren at the South, to a new doctrine on this subject. Of this
fact, one of his speeches in the Senate, in 1838, contains almost a
confession : " Many," he says, " in the South once believed that
slavery was a moral and political evil, but that folly and delusion
are gone. We now see it in its true light, and regard it as the
most safe and stable basis for free institutions." A member of
President Monroe's cabinet, when the Missouri Compromise was
proposed, Mr. Calhoun also gave to that measure his cordial appro-
bation ;f and as late as 1837 declared in the Senate " that it was
due to candor to say that his impressions were in its favor."!
A recent writer thus reports a conversation that this distinguished
Southerner had, " more than twenty years ago," with " a philo-
sophic observer, never absorbed in politics, and who visited Wash-
ington as a young man with good introductions, after his return
from a long tour of observation in Europe."
" Sir, people believe that I am an unqualified advocate of slavery —
that I hold the institution to be permanent and just. This, sir, is an
error, I have no faith in sl&yery as a permanent institution, nor as a
true one. I believe it to be but temporary, it serves a present purpose;
it is very important to maintain it while it serves this purpose, and for
this reason I defend and uphold it ; but I am no believer in, no advocate
of slavery in itself; it is an institution which is destined to come to an
end and disappear, like so many others, after having fulfilled its mis-
sion."?
* Stroud's Laws of Sl.avery, Preface to Second Edition, p. 6.
■j- Benton'f? Thirty Ye.ir.-- in U S. Senate, vol. i. p. 74'1.
+ Ibid., vol.ii. p. 13(j.
I Independent, December 25th, 1802.
40 SLAVERY AND THE WAR.
But this is not all. There is a fact in the life of Mr. Calhour,
remarkable in itself, and in the highest degree pertinent to the
point we are now illustrating, that recently came to the knowledge
of the writer of this article, and though no public announcement of
it may have ever, before this, been made, yet of its truthfulness
there can be no doubt. While on a visit to the North, in the sum-
mer of 1821 or 1822, Mr. Calhoun was frequently in the society of
an eminent Presbyterian divine. The acquaintance that had for
many years existed between the two men, invited in their interviews
the fullest and frankest expressions of opinion, and this was doubt-
less still further promoted by their entire diversity of pursuits.
The theme that engrossed a large part of their conversation was
naturally the institution of American slavery, for in the admission
of Missouri as a slaveholding State into the Union, we had just
as a nation came through our first great struggle on that subject.
In everything, however, that was said upon this theme, Mr. Cal-
houn attempted no defense of the system, but, on the contrary,
unhesitatingly pronounced it to be a great evil, both morally and
politically. At these declarations the divine expressed surprise,
and urged that the distinguished Southerner, as he was certainly
greatly misunderstood on this subject, should give to them some
public expression. And as a definite mode, he suggested the prep-
aration by him of a bill for the abolition of slavery, either gradual
or immediate, in the District of Columbia. The property of the
whole country, and the seat of our national gpvernment, the divine
pressed upon Mr. Calhoun, the desirableness of its being entirely
unpolluted by the touch of slavery. At first the argument seemed
to be little heeded, but at length, upon the condition that the
measure should be entirely a Soutliern one, come from the South,
and receive its advocacy, Mr. Calhoun consented to prepare such
a bill, and arranged with his friend to visit Washington, whenever
he should inform him that the details of the measure had been pre-
pared. Nor was the promise forgotten. In the winter following
these interviews, Mr. Calhoun summoned his friend to the capitol,
informing him of his readiness to proceed with the proposed
measure. The divine immediately complied with the invitation. He
went to Washington, saw Mr. Calhoun, at his request, solicited
two prominent Northern politicians to give to the proposed measure
their influence ; and was, as he supposed, on the very eve of suc-
cess, when suddenly the distinguished Southerner refused to tak<i
another step in the matter, alleging as his reason the violent anti-
SLAVERY AND TUE WAR.
41
slavery feelinp:, that was then just beginuiug to manifest itself in
some portions of New England.*
But from this view of the opposition to slavery, that was once
almost universal in this land, it is time that we should turn, to in-
quire, for a moment, into the causes of that strange and marvelous
change of sentiment that has, on this subject, recently taken place.
For whatever may, in our early history, have been pul)lic opinion
on this great question, no one can doubt but that there are few now,
at the South, at least, who condemn this institution. Among
Southern statesmen we look in vain for the men, who, in their views
of slavery, sympathize with Patrick Henry, Washington, Jefferson,
Madison, or of any of the other fathers of our republic; and we
know of no prominent divine at the South, who wonld ncnv vote for
such a deliverance upon this subject, as was the unanimous utter-
ance of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in 1818.
Upon this great moral question, viiUions of people have, in thirty
years, or a little more, radically changed their sentiments. In this
age of progress in art, education, and religion, we have beheld the
strange phenomenon of whole States, converted from the opponents
of involuntary servitude, into its stoutest defenders. Toward the
great idea of universal liberty and equality, the race at large has,
for the last half century, been steadily advancing. In the old
world these principles battling with oppression has, from many
of its seats of power, hurled it into the dust. Even in Russia
Berfdom has been abolished. It is in enlightened and Christian
America alone, that the moral tone of society seems, in this respect,
to have been lowered, that the public conscience has deteriorated,
and that men have gone back, in their ideas of human rights, to
barbaric ages.
But how was this sad change effected ? What were the influ-
ences most potent in producing it ?
* The writer of this article is fully aware of the fact, that (he public
will be slow to believe such a statement as this. We are all justly incred-
ulous with reference to any alleged fact, in the history of a public man, that
is new, and in opposiiion to the generally received estimate of his opinions. It
is proper, therefore, definitely to stale the authority upon which the above
statement is made. The facts were mentioned to the writer by the "distin-
guished divine" himself, in conversation some years since. They are, like-
wise, contained in a letter, written at his dictation, and dated ,
October Gth, 1802. In this letter permission is given to the author to pub-
lish these facts. He regrets that he has not the liberty of adding the name
of the eminent divine.
42 SLAVERY AND THE WAR.
By many the whole problem is supposed to be solved, by the sim-
ple fact of the intemperate, and, oftentimes, uncharitable discussion
of this subject at the North. Frcfm the opponents of slavery, the
whole South became its friends, we are told, because men, who had
no personal contact with, or interest in this institution, indeed, who
lived hundreds of miles from it, violently condemned it; wrote un-
kindly and hastily about it ; petitioned Congress either to abolish it
or to prevent its extension ; sought to bring odium upon all who were
in anyway engaged in it; and finally endeavored even to excite to
a bloody insurrection those who were in bondage. Had these men
attended to their own concerns, had the Northern press and pulpit
been silent on this subject, or had their utterances been more kind
and considerate, we are assured that we would never have wit-
nessed that strange revolution of sentiment to which we have just
referred.
But is this so ? Is this cause sufficient to produce such an
effect ? We say nothing in reply of the admitted fact that the
men who thus spoke and wrote, constituted but a small minority of
the whole people of the North — we willingly waive this important
consideration — nor would we yet again, here express any opinion
as to their conduct, whether it was in itself right or wrong, for ita
influence might in either case, be the same We would rather accept
the most exaggerated statement that on this subject can be made,
and unite in the severest condemnation of such conduct, while we
yet assert that, as a cause, it is altogether inadequate to the effect.
What! nine millions of people, radically changed in sentiment
upon a great moral question, converted to the most obstinate de-
fense of slavery, brought to the point of regarding that institution
as divine, and a blessing to both of the parties between whom it
subsists, because a number of men, as large as themselves, and
certainly their peers in intelligence and piety, regarded it as wicked,
said so, and were unceasing, and, we will add, unscrupulous, in
their efforts to destroy it! Can any candid man believe that such
a thing is possible ? That the feelings of the South have been
deeply wounded by what they regarded as the meddlesomeness of
the North with their peculiar institution, that they have been
chafed and irritated by it, that they have regarded themselves as
maligned, and that this conviction of injured innocence has, in some
cases, led them to defend what, in other circumstances, they would
have condemned, we cheerfully admit. The result of persecution,
either real or supposed, is, perhaps, always to endear to men that
SLAVERY ANI) THE WAR. 43
for whicb they are persecuted, and to lead them to stand up more
stoutly in its defense. But one entire section of a great country
revolutionized in sentiment upon a moral question, led to believe
that a domestic institution was right that previously they had
regarded as wrong, because the other section condemned it, and
labored and prayed for its abolition, is not the very idea prepos-
terous !
Suppose the case to be reversed ; suppose the whole South to have
arraigned itself, in the most violent opposition, to the manufacture
and sale of intoxicating drinks at the North, can we conceive that
we here would have all become the champions of this trafiic, and
boldlv affirmed it to be morally right ? It is time that the idea we
are considering should be exploded. It has dwelt long enough in
the bosoms of good men, as a sufficient apology, for one of the most
marvelous changes of sentiment that the world has ever witnessed.
We must look further, and deeper, for the real cause of this sad
effect.
In the case of a single individual, we are all aware of the in-
fluence, that is exerted upon the moral judgment, by a long con-
tinuance in any line of conduct, or mode of life, that is once felt
to be either positively wrong, or of doubtful propriety. As men
live in the practice of sin, they lose both the consciousness, and the
belief of its sinfulness. Self conditions faith. The power that
perceives a wicked act, partakes of the general injury that that
act, when performed, inflicts on the soul. As character deterio-
rates, so does the standard by which we judge of it. A man's
own moral state and life is very much the measure of his moral
convictions. Let any one have his conscience so enlightened, as
to perceive that a certain pursuit in which he is engaged is wrong,
but, despite that, let him still continue in it, and in time he will be
veiy prone, not only to lose all convictions of its wickedness, bat
really to marvel how he could have ever cherished, with regard to
it, such an opinion. It is by this principle alone, that we can ex-
plain the fact, that those most apt in this world to justify them-
selves, and in conscious innocence to say, "we have no sin," are
ordinarily the most depraved. They have gone on so far in sin
that it has become a ''hidden thing^^ to them. Their moral sense
is paralyzed. " In the lowered temperature of the inward con-
sciousness, they have reached that point, where the growing cold-
ness, hardness, and selfi.shness of a man's nature can no longer be
noted ; the mechanism by which moral variations are indicated,
having become itself insensible and motionless."
44 SLAVERY AND THE WAR.
The principle is applicable to the case before up, ant] in it may
be found one potent cause for the effect which we have described.
There was a time, in the history of this country, when the conscience
of the South was so enlightened, as to see that slavery was a great
moral evil. Her statesmen saw it, and did not hesitate to pro-
claim it. Her divines saw it, and did not draw back, in the de-
liverances of the church, from uniting with others in condemning
it. But, alas, to these convictions, expressed in political speeches,
and church deliverances, there was no corresponding action.
Slavery, seen to be an evil, was not immediately abolished, nor
were any plans devised by which it might ultimately be destroyed.
On the contrary, the institution was retained. Southern society,
instead of seek:' g to cast off tliis net-work of evil, or to loosen the
coils in which it Vas iuwrapping it, suffered it to remain, and every
day to tighten its grasp. The difficulties in the way of the eman-
cipation of the enslaved were so e.xaggerated, as to be regarded as
forever insurmountable. The behests of conscience were destroyed.
The monitions of the moral sense were disregarded. Men went
on doing what they knew to be wrong. They wilfully continued
in sin. And, from such conduct, is it any marvel that, in time,
just such results followed as we have described ? Refusing to do
anything for the freedom of the enslaved, when conscious that
duty demanded it, is it strange that that bondage should finally
come itself to be regarded as right ?
We are well aware of the seriousness of the charge that we thus
bring against the South. In what we have said, we aver nothing
less, on this point, than their demoralization. We affirm that they
are now the defenders of African slavery, because of a paralysis of
their conscience, produced by the long continuance of this institu-
tion, after its true character was known. But can any candid
mind doubt that this position is true ? Is it not a conclusion
logically irresistible ? Do we not see the same principle repeating
itself in the moral judgment of individuals all around us ? To
work a radical change, in the opinion of a man, upon the moral
character of any action, is there anything more efficient than its
habitual performance, after his conscience has once been enlight-
ened to know that it is wrong ?
But other causes have conspired, with the one just mentioned,
in producing this wonderful revolution of sentiment at the ^iouth,
with regard to slavery. During our colonial history, and for the
first few years of our existence as a separate nation, when, m we
SLAVERY AND THE WAR. 45
have seen, the anti-slavery feelinjr was so strong, we have already
bad occasion to refer to the fact, that the growth of cotton in this
coantry was inconsiderable. A writer in the Penny Cyclopajdia
presents us with this brief summary of facts : —
'• In 17S6 tlie total imports of cotton to the British isles was some-
what less than 20,000,000 pounds, no part of which was furnished by
North America. Our West India colonies supplied nearly one-third,
about an equal quantity was brought from foreign colonies in the same
quarter, 2,000.000 pounds came from Brazil, and 5,000,000 pounds from
the Levant. In 1790 the importation amounted to 31,447,605 pounds,
none of which was supplied by the United States. In 1795 the quantity
was only 2(>,401,340 pounds. In this year a commercial treaty was
made between the United States of North America a 1 Great Britain,
by one article of which, as it originally stood, the exp' .-t was prohibited
from the United States, in American vessels, of such articles as they
had previously imported from the West Indies. Among these articles
cotton was included ; Mr. Jay, the American negotiator, not being
atrare that cotton was then becoming an article of export from the
United States. In 1800 the imports had more than doubled, having
reached 50,010,732 pounds. This was the first year (1800) in which
any considerable quantity rvas obtained from America, the imports
from that quarter were about 16,000,000 pounds."*
But it happened that about this time, several causes came into
operation which, in their effect, greatly increased, both the demand
for cotton abroad, and its cultivation in this country. It was now
that the inventions of Hargreaves, Arkwright, Crompton, and
others, in cotton-spinning, were made, enabling English artisans
successfully to compete with the weavers of India; and that the
steam engine, having undergone the improvements of Watt, was
first applied on a large scale to manufacturing industry. It was,
likewise, at this time, that Whitney invented his saw-gin, an in-
vention which strikingly slipplemented those of which we have just
spoken, and without which we, as a people, could have done little to-
ward supplying that increased demand for cotton which these inven-
tions of English artisans, had produced. Before this, the only cotton
grown in America which was available for the general purposes of
commerce, was that which was known as the Sea-Island kind. But
this variety grew only in a few favored localities, and the quantity
produced could never of necessity be large. The difficulty of
separating the seed from the wool, by any methods then in use,
* Article Cotton.
46 SLAVERY AND THE WAB.
was so great in the other variet-bs of cotton that conld be grown
on this continent, as to render them of little value for the ordinary
purposes of trade. But this difficulty the invention of Whitney so
completely overcome, as at once to bring into general demand the
whole American crop.* In a suit brought by Whitney, in Savan-
nah, in 180T, to sustain the validity of his patent, Judge Johnson
thus speaks of the importance of this Invention, and of its influence
upon the industrial interests of the South : —
"The whole interior of the Southern States was languishing;, and its
inhabitants emigrating for want of some object to engage their atten-
tion and employ their industry, when the invention of this machine at
once opened views to them which set the whole country in active motion.
From childhood to age it has presented to us a lucrative employment.
Individuals who were depressed with poverty and sunk in idleness, have
suddenly risen to wealth and respectability. Our debts have been paid
o£F, our capitals have increased, and our lauds trebled themselves in
value. "t
Moreover, it should here be remarked, that African slavery, to
be economical and permanent, must be applied to the production
of some commodity which, while it is greatly in demand, requires
only crude labor. In the more difficult industrial arts it cannot
be profitably and safely employed, the general awakening of the
faculties, intellectual and moral, produced by such pursuits, inevi-
tably disqualifying men for a servile condition. But cotton is a
commodity which fulfills these conditions.
And of these combined influences, the result was precisely what
we should have anticipated. The Slave States became cotton-
growing States. That plant, which heretofore had been culti-
vated mainly in the gardens of the South, and whose growth, for
the purposes of trade, had been limited to a narrow belt of land
runnino- along the coast of South Carolina, now whitened scores
of acres far inland. It was exported to Europe. It came into
successful competition with that which had been grown in other
countries. By its superior quality and low price, it gradually
commauded for itself almost the whole market. Europe began
now to look to America for her supply of this great staple of
trade, and its growth elsewhere began materially to decline.
Moreover, through this exportation, the South was enabled to
* See Cairnes' Slave Power, p. 106.
■j- American Journal of Science, vol. xii.
SLAVERY AND THE WAR. 47
command the industrial resources f all commercial nations. With-
out cultivating for herself any art, or engaging in any skilled labor
— as indeed she could not with her slaves do — she was yet able,
through an exchange with other countries, to secure the products
of the highest manufacturing and mechanical skill. Wealth, too,
was thus secured to the slaveholders of the South. The value of
cotton exported from this country, in 1858, has been estimated at
nearly one hundred and thirty-two millions of dollars,* and to this
must be added the sum realized from sales at home.
And from the commencement of this process, near tlie opening
of the present century, it has been steadily going on. The fol-
lowing table — prepared after consulting all the authorities within
our reach, and containing the total production of raw cotton in
every part of our globe, together with the whole amount of the
crop grown in the United States, at intervals of ten years — will
perhaps present this subject more forcibly than we could do in
words. In its examination, we beg that our readers will observe
how impressively it teaches us these two great facts : the aston-
ishing rapidity with which this trade has grown at the South, and
the almost complete monopoly of it which at last was attained: —
Tears.
Amount grown in thp
tnited ^tate?.
Total production of raw
cotton.
1791
lbs.
2,000,000
48,0110,000
80,000,000
180,000,000
385,000,000
740,000.000
1,036,000,000
lbs.
490,000,000
520,000,000
555.000,000
630,000,(100
820,(»0n,u00
980,000,000
1,242,000,000
1801
1811
1821
1831
1841
1851
And now these facts, have they no connection with that great
revolution of sentiment, with regard to the moral character of
slavery, that has taken place at the South ? Can any man think
of them together, and believe that they are in no way related?
When a business becomes highly profitable, is anything more com-
mon among men than the conviction of its rightfulness? A self-
interested casuistry, is it not very prone to call in unsound pleas,
and reasons, and excuses which, constantly pressing the line that
* New American Cyclopaedia, article Cotton.
48 SLAVERY AND THE WAR.
divides right from wrong, at last wholly removes it ? In asserting
this, we do nothing more than attribute to the South the foibles of
our common humanity. The spectacle of either an individual, or
a nation condemning that which enriches them, is very rare in this
world of sin. Lord Bacon says : " I cannot call riches better
than the baggage of virtue — the Roman word is better, 'impedi-
menta'— for, as the baggage is to an army, so is riches to virtue,
* * it hindereth the march; * * yea, it sometimes loseth
or disturbeth the victory."*
What a sad illustration of this truth do we discover in the his-
tory of this nation 1 With no great staple of trade that could
be profitably cultivated by slave labor, and that was rapidly
enriching the South, the institution of American slavery was
almost universally condemned ! With such a commodity, and in
the possession of the monopoly of it, slavery is believed to be
right; and, for its preservation and extension, it is thought to be
no crime to deluge our country with blood, destroy our nationality,
and extinguish to the world the last hope of free government.
* Lord Bacon's Works, vol. i. p. 42.
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